Mother, 37, has cor­ro­sive liq­uid thrown in her face
At­tacked as she an­swers door at her de­tached home
Masked thug leaves her in agony with se­ri­ous burns

A MOTHER has been left with se­vere burns in a ‘tar­geted’ acid at­tack in a sub­ur­ban street.

Po­lice are ap­peal­ing for wit­nesses af­ter a masked man threw a cor­ro­sive sub­stance over the 37-year-old as she opened the front door of her bun­ga­low in the Grace­mount area of Ed­in­burgh on Fri­day night.

Lo­cal res­i­dents say the vic­tim’s young son was stand­ing be­hind her in the door­way and only avoided in­jury as his fa­ther, who is un­der­stood to have been the in­tended vic­tim, whisked him away.

The woman re­mains in hospi­tal, where she is re­ceiv­ing treat­ment for se­ri­ous burns to her face and neck.

Neigh­bours of the fam­ily said the com­mu­nity was ‘united in their dis­gust’ last night.

One woman, who did not wish to be named, said: ‘I was wo­ken up by po­lice bang­ing on my door early this morn­ing.

‘They said there was an acid at­tack. It’s ter­ri­ble, what a thing to hap­pen, es­pe­cially when they’ve got a wee boy.’

An­other res­i­dent said: ‘I heard lots of shout­ing af­ter it hap­pened and the po­lice came and put tape up.’

A friend of the vic­tim said: ‘She an­swered the door and had what is thought to be acid thrown in her face.

‘It seems that the tar­get was ac­tu­ally her part­ner, who was in the house at the time with the two kids.

‘God knows what may have hap­pened had one of the chil­dren come to the door.’

The friend added: ‘Her part­ner rushed her through to the bath­room and threw wa­ter on her but the dam­age is still ex­ten­sive.

‘She may lose the sight in one eye and will need plas­tic surgery on her burned skin. It’s de­spi­ca­ble. Peo­ple in this com­mu­nity are united in their dis­gust.’

The at­tack at the prop­erty on Cap­tain’s Road took place at 8.40pm on Fri­day.

Po­lice said the at­tacker is be­lieved to be in his early twen­ties, 5ft 11in tall, slim and wear­ing a dark-coloured match­ing track­suit.

His grey hooded top was pulled up and his face was cov­ered. He was also wear­ing dark gloves and dark train­ers with light re­flec­tive sec­tions.

De­tec­tive In­spec­tor Ste­vie Rosie said: ‘We are still work­ing to es­tab­lish the mo­tive sur­round­ing this at­tack. How­ever, we be­lieve this to be a tar­geted at­tack.

‘Po­lice are sup­port­ing the vic­tim, who has sus­tained some very se­ri­ous in­juries to her face and neck.

‘Any­one who recog­nises the de­scrip­tion of the at­tacker, or who has any other in­for­ma­tion rel­e­vant to this in­ves­ti­ga­tion, should con­tact po­lice im­me­di­ately.’

The prop­erty re­mained taped off last night as de­tec­tives con­tin­ued in­ves­ti­ga­tions. Po­lice are still wait­ing for official iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the sub­stance used in the at­tack.

Peo­ple who may have in­for­ma­tion can con­tact Po­lice Scot­land on 101 and quote in­ci­dent 4125.